The Mull Of Galloway Is The
Most Northern Promontory, And The Land From It Bends Due East.
The Western
Islands run east and west, along the north shore of Ireland, the west being
the true north point in them.
He is, however, on the whole, pretty accurate
in his location of the tribes which at that period inhabited Scotland.
Strabo had placed Ireland to the north of Britain, but in its true
latitude. Ptolemy's map, which is the first geographical document of that
island, represents it to the west of Britain, but five degrees further to
the north than it actually is. He delineates its general shape, rivers, and
promontories with tolerable accuracy, and some of his towns may be traced
in their present appellations, as Dublin in Eblana. It has already been
noticed that he was probably acquainted with the south of Sweden, and his
four Scandinavian islands are evidently Zealand, Funen, Laland, and
Falster. It is remarkable that his geography is more accurate almost in
proportion as it recedes from the Mediterranean. The form which he assigns
to Italy is much farther removed from the truth than the form of most of
the other European countries which he describes. His fundamental error in
longitude led him to give to the Mediterranean Sea a much greater extent
than it actually possesses. According to him, it occupies nearly sixty-five
degrees; and it is a singular circumstance, as well as a decisive proof of
the influence of his authority, as well of the slow progress of accurate
and experimental geography, that his mensuration of this sea was reputed as
exact till the reign of Louis XIV., when it was curtailed of nearly
twenty-five degrees by observation.
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